A LOOOOO–NG Weekend!

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Did everybody enjoy the long weekend? Wow! What a weekend?!?

First, I need to say thank all the powers of the Universe for
days off. I've been sneezing my fool head off ever since, but I
spent most of the day cleaning. Having a clean house is Zen. I can
now sit in the middle of my living room in the lotus position
holding my fingers together. I won't (because I don't have time),
but the important thing is -- I CAN.

(Image source:
http://blogs.studentlife.utoronto.ca/lifeatuoft/)

I spent some time out in the world this weekend, when I wasn't
cleaning or studying. We get so sheltered, living in academia, that
we forget how different it is. I came across a lot of stigma about
chiropractic. Education helps fix that. Sometimes people just have
to be exposed to what we're doing, what we're learning and
practicing, and the basis for our practices in order to step beyond
the conditioning they've received. Some won't. And that's OK. We'll
love them anyway.

I received a big reminder about how difficult it is to practice
"lifestyle medicine." We spend a lot of our time talking about
changes that have to be made to the diet or lifestyle. I honestly
don't know how many times a week that I tell someone something
like, "Well, that could be fixed with removing XYZ from the diet."
Here's the thing though: People don't want to remove XYZ from their
diet. We're all familiar with people who continue to eat fast food
or candy or soda and their effects on the body. We're also familiar
with how many of those people end up injecting insulin or taking
metformin. People do not respond well to change. The prevailing
opinion is that it's easier to either accept the condition they
have (and the symptom management) rather than to prevent or cure
the issue by making change.

I'm honestly not sure where this mentality comes from. Perhaps
it's the American adage that a pill fixes everything. I have a hard
time believing that people are that *bad word alert* lazy (sorry).
For some that I've talked to, they can't believe that making a
change to their diet or activity levels will make them feel better,
or that they've tried everything and nothing has worked. After all,
they're dealing with complex health issues like autoimmune
disorders, diabetes, and heart disease. Some will listen to reason
and participate in education and others won't. Age doesn't seem to
have a bearing on this -- people of all ages fall into this
grouping. Perhaps I'd be the best physician ever, if I could figure
out what would get through to people that have this block. But for
right now, I'm struggling with the acceptance (which really sounds
like defeat) that people have of their dysfunctions, and the lack
of willingness to do anything about it. On compliance with lifestyle recommendations --
what do you think?

Since stress management is a big part of lifestyle, here is a
sunset picture I took on Monday. Remember. Zen.

As a self-reported "lifestyle change queen", I'm all too ready
to make changes in my own life with the goal of feeling better. Dr
S. tells us, as students, that we need to try things in order to be
able to recommend them to our patients (speaking of dietary
changes). Given that one of my own issues is Celiac disease, a
change in lifestyle was the ONLY option for becoming healthy. I
can't even begin to express how drastically my life changed in
response to that.

Some changes are harder to make. Cutting down my rice
consumption has been one of them. I'm down to only 2-3 servings per
week at this point. But others are so much easier. For me, it comes
down to the information, and hope. How will I feel once this change
has been made? What are the possibilities? What information can I
find that supports this decision?

Is there a change that you need to make? What's stopping you?
What if you felt a million times better, increased the quality and
quantity of your life, and it only took a short period of
adjustment?

Maybe these are the questions we should be asking our (future)
patients.